Carl’s Story:
I’ve been running trains and trolleys since 1987, starting with volunteering at the Orange Empire Railway Museum (OERM) in Perris, California. My original intent was to volunteer on the steam crew but the guy in charge at the time wasn’t particularly friendly. I found that the trolley folks over there were very welcoming and I got hooked on the “juice”! At the time, I was the youngest qualified Motorman on the roster and ran various streetcars, interurbans, and locomotives.
Orange Empire has quite a collection of railroad rolling stock and traction. Most of the electric cars came from the Pacific Electric and the Los Angeles Railway and can be seen in many of the classic movies made back in the day.
In 1990, I went to work for Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, as a Fireman/Engineer on their “Ghost Town & Calico” Railroad and ran and fired their two narrow gauge steam locomotives that came off the Denver & Rio Grande Western and Rio Grande Southern railroads. I also ran Galloping Goose #3.
In 1993, I went to work for the Grand Canyon Railway in Williams, Arizona as a Hostler/Mechanic where I worked on their steam and diesels locomotives. I did the fire-ups in the morning, shut-downs & servicing at the end of the days and ran the engines for switching out the cars. Added to this was the day-to-day inspections and repairs of the locomotives for their daily runs.
Finally, in 1996, I hired out with the BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) in Pasco, Washington, as a Trainman and then took my Engineer promotion in 1997 and worked for them until 2014, with most of my service with them working out of Spokane, Washington.
During my career on the BNSF, I was really missing running the steam locomotives and trollies and was considering volunteering again. I rejoined Orange Empire and got requalified on a number of the electric cars, of which I would fly down to California on vacation time to visit family and friends and spend some time twisting controllers.
In early July, 2014, My wife and I took our 3 daughters and a French foreign exchange student we were sponsoring on a road trip to Lake Louis and Banff. When we got to Cranbrook, BC, we were told that Canada was burning down and that the road to Banff was closed. I had heard about the streetcar in Nelson before and had also did a couple training runs as an engineer with BNSF on the “Nelson Turn” (which terminated in Salmo, BC) in 1997 so I was curious about Nelson. When we drove across “BOB”, I noticed the wires at Lakeside and had to ride the car. I went into the carbarn after riding and met Terry Thompson and Jim Robertson and joined on the spot. After telling Terry about my previous experience, he let me run the car to the Mall parking lot going out and from the Mall parking lot to the barn coming back. I was definitely hooked and made arrangements to take the class a couple weeks later. Unfortunately, I missed the class because I was in the ER at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane because of a windstorm that blew a 110′ tall pine tree onto my car which sent a branch through the windshield that severed off my left forearm and completely impaled me through the right hip. So, for the next two years, I was laid up. I took the Early Job Disability Railroad Retirement with the railroad as I realized that I was in no condition to go back to the BNSF. Railroading in one form or another is my passion so I figured that I still can volunteer on a limited basis and NETS (Nelson Electric Tramway Society) and OERM is a good place to try. In the Winter of 2015, I went down to OERM and got back into running the streetcars. I was able to figure out how to run the cars with my prosthetic arm and bum leg and this gave me further confidence in my recovery.
In June, 2016, I managed to get back into the game with NETS and got qualified to run Car #23 and have been doing this since. I do NETS in the Summer and OERM in the Winter. I find Nelson to be a very pleasant town and my Canadian neighbors to be very friendly. Many kids ask me about my hook and I love to tell them that I’m a pirate who lost his pirate ship but now has a pirate trolley! Adults will often ask how I lost my arm and I tell them the true story of what happened and how I bounced back from the threshold of death to enjoying life again. One just can’t let bad things get him down… if you get a load of lemons, make lemonade! I’m making new friends at NETS and enjoy working with each one that I encounter along with hearing their Life stories. The drive from my home in Chattaroy, WA, to Nelson, BC, takes almost 3 hours but it’s a beautiful drive and really no big deal. It’s actually a good “getaway” destination for a couple days twice a month during the season.
